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In what seems to be a sweeping crackdown on the Nigerian media, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has issued orders for security forces to revoke the accreditations of 25 journalists stationed at the Presidential Villa.
According to SaharaReporters, the journalists were taken aback when security personnel stationed at the main gate instructed them to surrender their accreditation badges on Friday, August 18th.
These security personnel did not provide any justification or explanation for the sudden withdrawal of these badges.
The affected journalists are expressing deep concerns about the rationale behind this action, which has ignited significant apprehension about the state of press freedom.
This group of impacted journalists includes reporters, camera operators, and photojournalists hailing from various broadcast, print, and online media organizations, such as PromptNews, ONTV, ITV Abuja, Liberty, Vanguard, Galaxy TV, Ben TV, MITV, and numerous others.
The media outlets that have been affected have been urged to collaborate with their colleagues to source video clips and other news materials.
Meanwhile, those media establishments that have remained unaffected by this crackdown appear to be maintaining silence regarding the situation. This silence is raising suspicions about a deliberate effort to undermine and hinder press freedom.
Several of the journalists have criticized the actions of the Tinubu-led government as unreasonable, intolerable, and as an endeavor to curtail and restrict the realm of media coverage.
As a result, they are appealing to civil society organizations to take a stand against this repressive and suppressive treatment of the media. They emphasize that a free press is not the privilege of any branch of government, and that the media plays a pivotal role in upholding the foundation of a democratic society.
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